Total World War: December 1941 (BETA) 2.8.0.5

The newest release (as of August 6th 2018) of TWW is now in the map download of Triple A. It is important to note that in order to be played you must first up-date your Triple A engine to a minimum version of TBA

These changes are included in the Game notes inside the game. The information in the appendices supersedes the information in the body of the game manual. I intend on making changes to the main portions of the game manual once we have established that the BETA is balanced.

This still represents a BETA test, so feel free to provide any feed back about the game and the changes that have been made since the previous release.

I'm still learning the tactics required to be successful on this map, so I may be completely wrong. But here's some feedback regarding trains.

I think trains movement at 6 on start of the game is too much. It makes the German-Russian front specifically, a bit stacky among other things.

Stacky leads to more calculating and this bogs down the game. This seems bad for early rounds since those already are intrinsically, the slower rounds for new guys like myself.

My suggestion is reducing the trains movement to at least 5 movement, but ideally 4 movement. Include a "Infrastructure" section of the tech tree that gives additional movement to trains.

Something like "improved locomotives, "advanced locomotives" and each of which give +1 movement to trains and also reduce cost of building the rails by -1pu each and perhaps even reduce the cost of the trains themselves, via these techs.

@hepps Here are some thoughts on the more dramatic changes and I grouped them into 3 chunks:

USA Atlantic vs Pacific (A/B/C) - Something along these lines would be good to encourage more US Atlantic focus or at least a balanced approach (more historical). Currently, the US should usually go primarily Pacific builds and has almost as much production capacity west coast as east coast (unhistorical). The challenge here would be this would benefit Japan significantly and make it more difficult for the USA to pressure Japan's expansion. I think its a good idea but I think you'd need to consider either giving the USA a few more units, removing a few units from Japan, or adding a few units to Allies near Japan.

Trains (D/E/F/G) - Yes. Only recommended change is make it +2 capacity with Advanced Logistics so that their capacity always lines up with transports (makes it easier to remember and smoother game play). This should help Russia's opening some as trains benefit Axis Europe the most. Though I'm not sure this is enough and I still think you may need to add a few units to Russia or remove a few from Germany.

Can Bomb Air Transports (H) - Sure. This would be a pretty minor change but could help limit landing air transports so far in the front. Though might want to give them more than 1 bombing hp similar to trains as they are more expensive than trucks/materials.

We had initially discussed an idea of breaking the USA into 3 parts. Atlantic Command, Pacific Command, and Central Command. The idea being similar to do what you are discussing... while leaving 30% of the Central Command to give the player some freedom to focus a greater portion one way or the other. I was heavily in favor of this approach. The only thing is this is a HUGE change in TWW, representing a massive departure from the existing game and having likely significant effects on rebalancing.

Yes... forgot the capacity was +2 with Advanced. My suggestion was meant to make everything uniform. Thumbs up.

Yes perhaps 2 HP. Operational until 1. that way you have a reasonable chance to have one survive... but then you have to repair it for it to be of any use.

@hepps Its an interesting idea to have the US as multiple players though probably not worth the effort at this point. Also not sure that it would feel right as I actually kind of like it as a single player but think the start should heavily favor production facilities on the east vs west coast. If the US wants to go Pacific they should have to build out the production facilities.

@Hepps Did you figure out the problem with the materials becoming minors if the territory they are is in "liberated". Guess this could be solved by having a new phase right after combat where all materials change ownership. Guess there is no way to change all units of a certain type at a time? Need a trigger for every minor territory, i guess.

Something I have on my mind for years: the option to turn off Lend & Lease. I'm thinking of a box in/at every L&L territory with all changeable units in, and you can move them in the box if you want to turn L&L with that unit in that territory off.

@wirkey I think I already fixed the materials.... will double check before I re-release.

The L&L I have lots of planned changes for in GD. So I am not really planning on revisiting it for TWW. But some of my concepts for GD do include some of what you mention. The only thing is I don't really want the player to decide not to give a unit to another country inside a L&L terr. ... since then you can simply stock pile units in those territories to mass for a separate invasion.... like using Murmansk as a staging point for a future invasion of Northern Finland. Goes against the idea that you cannot have units within the national boundaries unless it is for L&L. If anything I want to limit some of the existing hacks that are available to the Allied nations.

@hepps I tend to agree with the Russian/China L&L being non-optional for those reasons but you could make an argument for the UK L&L especially Labrador being optional though no idea if its worth the effort to make it optional.

@hepps true point, especially with stacking Murmansk. Guess next time i'll have to bring adv artillery and tanks
One thing I'd like to consider is the following: allied units already in Russia/China will still be able to move, even if the conditions of free movement are no longer valid. This might be done by those units changing to a new unit with same picture and stats, but a different name, which are able to move freely in china/Russia

@redrum To your point. In GD Newfoundland has 2 territories, both with the same movement possibilities. One shall be a L&L terr. the other will not. So that option will become available. In TWW I am not planning on any map changes... so we are going to have to live with that in this version.

The previous post has been updated with my progress so far. (Strike through means changes are implemented). The train changes were slightly more significant than I anticipated. So the release may still be a day or two away.

I have also reordered the units in the production frontiers to make use of the new and improved Battle Calc.

Huh! I'm not sure I'm reading this right but why is the AT a better AA than the AA gun O.o

Also adding that much AA to Advanced Armor seems op. Sure, the best armored divisions at the end of the war had mobile AA but it was of small caliber and few in numbers. A specialised AA group of stationary mixed caliber guns should be stronger here as well.

Are you sure these changes are balanced insofar the planes not getting any boosts, in some ways even getting nerfs. Not tested it so just askingl.

@ondis AT and Advanced Armor have "AA-type" attacks but only against tanks/mech/etc not air. So different units use "AA-type" attacks to target different types of units. AA is kind of a bad term and really should be called something like "First Strike" or "Targeted Attack".